Unmasked- Act 1- Issue 1- That Raging Inferno Called Live
by Thedude2222
Summary: A Gotham novel detailing the end of the legend of Batman.


**Issue 1:**

That Raging Inferno Called Live

The crowd of cheering freaks and killers grew in volume and fervor as Slade laid weapon after weapon at the edge of the circle. A hulking mass of feral Bane loomed over the mob like a thundercloud. His mind was gone from a new batch of Venom that Dr. Crane had tweaked for him. Slade made no move to defend himself as Bane advanced tree trunk arms raised and howling. He felt a cinderblock fist detonate on each shoulder and a sickening pop as his left arm jolted out of its socket. Despite his size and momentum Bane caught him around the neck as he slammed into the wall. Two right hands in swift succession took some teeth and possibly fractured Slade's nose. He dropped to the ground now as Bane turned and bellowed into the crowd who seemed to catch his adrenaline fever. Regardless of how much money the spectators stood to lose, everyone went ballistic at the possibility of Deathstroke's defeat.

A slick mixture of blood and saliva rolled through his lips as Slade hunched on all fours staring at the broken concrete of the bar's back alley. From behind he heard Bane's heavy breath. Lifted into the air and bear hugged by the behemoth, Slade's body still took an unbelievable amount of pressure before he felt a rib go. At the sight of Slade wincing the crowd drew forward hungry and fluid. Suddenly Bane dropped him and began stomping. Kicks to the face, sides, groin, and legs softened him up, and Slade felt that busted rib pop his right lung. Air went out of him like a punctured tire. That sweet, black nothing crept up around his vision like the restless crowd bearing down on him. Slade vaguely recognized the chant of the mob. BANE! BANE! BANE! BANE!

There was no anger in him over the jeers or the idea of being beaten. Only a sense of calm and inevitability remained when Bane lifted him again this time like a child who fell asleep on the couch. Immediately the crowd backed up and died down. They knew as well as Slade what was about to happen next. When Bane's knee met Slade's back there was a sickening series of snaps, and his body went limp like waves on the rocks. As the feeling fled his body Slade felt no fear. Instead it was peace. He also sensed another feeling unidentifiable to the world's greatest killer. That one was freedom.

An hour earlier in the brand new bar called Belly of the Whale, Deathstroke the Terminator sat in a dark corner nursing a glass of grapefruit juice. Slade ignored the clientele because all he could imagine was the best way to kill them. The changes started slowly after his super soldier experiment. The serum imbued him with strength, speed, and agility. Lately though other more concerning attributes popped up at random. His emotions grew more erratic, and anger lay under anything he did or said. He felt more like a trapped animal every day. Adrenaline began hitting him out of nowhere with increasing frequency.

"We can harness the power of natural evolution," Slade remembered the doctor's words before the prick so many years ago, "Why have a super soldier today when we can pluck one straight out of our future? This compound will rev up the natural process of evolution and turn you into what humanity will become a thousand…ten thousand years from now." Slade couldn't remember what the doctor looked like, but he never forgot Adeline's face in the waiting room. The men under her command called that look the Medusa stare, but it couldn't mask the fear she felt over an enemy which she had no power. Her husband had gone in a walking, talking maker of death. Why wasn't that enough for them? What came out was anyone's guess. In the worst times she always stopped short of saying it, but Slade knew. Better than anyone Adeline saw the man she married become a monster in the service of his country. The memory stuck in his throat like hard tack refusing to go down.

Outside the small window next to his secluded table he noticed a large congregation of crows. One lay dead next to a bench and its brethren filled the trees, light poles, and rooftops cawing mysteriously. More came swooping through the air landing and joining. Even in the bar the very air of Gotham brimmed with energy and troubled screeching.

"Do they mourn their dead?" someone behind him asked, and Slade turned to meet her gaze when he realized his hand now rested on the butt of his gun. A slender woman in a white sundress pulled up a chair at his table. She was gorgeous, Chinese in ancestry he noticed immediately. Jet black hair braided thick held a white daisy tucked behind her right ear.

"A murder at a funeral," Slade grumbled and watched a faint smile pass her face she quickly hid. He'd never seen anyone like her in Gotham. She gave off an air of fragility and distinguished composure. It wasn't a combination Gotham typically allowed people to keep.

"Do they grieve its death?" she asked again regarding the birds, "Can they empathize with pain? Do they understand respect?"

"Some experts think it's a way to identify possible threats in the area. They can remember the face of a crow killer or a dog or cat, anything. They're some of the smartest birds in the world. They've been known to use busy roads to crack nuts by waiting for cars to run over them," Slade shocked himself into silence. He couldn't remember the last time he spoke so much to a stranger especially over something as mundane as this. The woman leaned in as if to tell a dark secret and instead asked what he thought.

"I don't think they know why. Maybe some time ago there was a reason, but if there was it has long been forgotten. It's something they were born to do, so they do it." This conversation had taken a more sinister turn, and for a moment Slade disassociated from the entire scenario watching the scene play out like he wasn't there. Despite his racing mind Slade's senses refused to betray him.

"You're the one who took Batman. Who are you?" Slade demanded grabbing her wrist. Pulse quickened and breath paused in her throat. No matter her grasp of self-control Slade spooked her. That much was clear. Suddenly the playing field leveled, and he saw fear dancing behind those solemn chestnut eyes.

"I don't- how do you-"

"Lady, I can smell him on you. It's a distinct scent like a mixture of heavy musk and Crane's fear toxin. Now answer my question."

"We didn't do anything to him Slade. It's what we're doing for him. Change is coming to Gotham one way or another, and we want you to be on the right side of it. Imagine having the law at your back without it trying to shoot you. You're the first we've contacted." She pulled her hand away and looked at him with pity. No one looked at him like that, and it felt like he was burning on the inside.

"You can't give me what I want," Slade stated blankly.

"If you join us I'll give you anything you could ever desire. And if you don't I'll lock you up in a room deep underground. We'll see how long it takes evolution to hit the apex and come crashing back down until you're an animal again," she said with no more emotion than a person reading a grocery list. Slade heard power but more importantly confidence in that voice. There were very few people on the planet that would ever speak to the great Deathstroke in this way.

"You honestly believe you can change this city? Fix it? Better women and men than you have tried and lost everything. Pick up a history book and you'll see this city was corrupt with mobsters long before a man put on a costume. Back then they called themselves Frankie the Snake or the Godless Ruskie," Slade paused examining his companion's demeanor. At the beginning of the conversation she was detached, above it all but now she seemed intrigued. Clearly Slade diverted from her expectations. In some way he knew it as if writ large across her face. These days he found he knew more and more without conscious analysis. Even this truth about Gotham entered his head piece by piece as the word's passed his teeth.

"So you believe the inhabitants of this city are inherently…what? Damned, inferior?" she pressed.

"Not at all. I'm saying it's the city herself. She's damned, toxic, cursed. Even her greatest hero was born from tragedy. I've looked into those eyes and no love or joy created a man like that. A man that hard can only be crafted by pain and suffering. If a city treats its greatest protector like that imagine what she does to her villains, and there's no shortage of them," Slade explained waving his hand towards the bar.

"So my answer is no simply because I know you'll fail," he continued, "But before you go back to whatever it is you're planning perhaps you'd like a demonstration on just how sick this city really is."  
"Wait!" she called as he rose finishing his juice, "I know who you are. You're Deathstroke the Terminator. I see now the history we could make. Beyond the warrior you are a man of philosophy and insight and-" Slade leaned down cutting her off and whispered something in her ear. The luminescent woman sighed in disappointed resignation leaning back in her chair.

The door to the bar imploding taking the frame and good sized chunks of plaster with it. Bane pounded down the bar tweaking the worst Slade had ever seen. He'd grown at least two feet from his normal height. His muscles pulsed and seemed to threaten to split the very skin that held them together. He said something to his lackeys and proclaimed loudly to the bar.

"There's not a man in Gotham who can take me!" All eyes turned to Slade who approached from the back.

"It's a big place. You sure about that?" Slade growled. Bane paused a moment when he noticed Slade and not a single person in the bar took so much as a breath. Another time Bane may have let it go. However too much attention, testosterone, and Venom made reason an indecipherable tool for Gotham's behemoth.

"Anytime viejo." And just like that the stage was lit and set. Slade just sauntered past sticking a thumb towards the side alley.

"Now." He demanded. As Slade walked toward what used to be the door, the bar already filled with people waving money and making bets. He noticed one of Bane's henchmen call the waitress to his now empty table near the door.

"You wanna hear the odds, honey?" she asked.

"Nah," he whispered slipping a wad of money into her hand, "just put it all on the Stroke."

When the feeling and more importantly the pain came back to Slade it was like being born in a burning hospital. Every nerve in his body lit up at once and screamed warning. Maximum capacity exceeded, they said. Red alert, they said. Initiating overload, they said. His back muscles clenched in a spasm as if struck by lightning, and he heard the individual vertebrae pushing back into place. Slade groaned in anticipation of what was next. Torn tissues stretched through his body and he screamed. Alien tendrils reached out probing to reattach that which should have been lost forever. Bones snapped back rewelding themselves together even stronger than before the breaks. Slade rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up on all fours panting, practically drinking the oxygen from the air. The leaky lung resealed itself and he could finally take a full breath.

Besides Bane who had his back to his opponent the crowd fell silent. Uncertainty invaded their thoughts. Doubt bit them on the backs of their necks and sent a frigid chill down their spines. This man, if one could use that term, was about to stand after having his back broken not twenty seconds ago. What were they when something like that existed? What was their power in comparison to a man who couldn't or refused to die? A reverence born of fear replaced the crowd's cheers for its new champion. Slade glanced through the mob and saw the woman near the back. However there was no fear on her face only frustration and not just with him. Clearly she could see the sickness. The cancer in Gotham metastasized in spandex, neon colors, and capes. He saw her reluctant recognition of what he understood so long ago. Gotham gave birth to these overlooked abortions. She nurtured their perversion, her psychologically still-born children.

What kind of power would it take to conquer this city? What was the answer to this circular pain? And more than that who would have the audacity to even try? As these old, tired questions passed his mind Slade realized he now stood before the crowd and a stunned Bane. Since the experiment he always healed fast but this was very different. Slade felt a fear toward his own body and what it could do with or without him. As he changed control seemed to slip farther away. Bane came on again stronger and faster than last time but it didn't matter. Effortlessly Deathstroke evaded swing after swing. His body reacted on a level beyond his conscious thought. Bane's strikes seemed to cut through the air in slow motion. When Bane's wide right hook soared over his head Deathstroke's fist responded in turn and planted square against his sternum. Bane shot across the pavement like a wrecking ball and blasted through the wall of the bar and out the other side.

Dust and debris filled the air, and Deathstroke looked down at his own hand. He'd never hit anyone that hard before much less the four hundred pound monster staggering to his feet. To his credit Bane shook it off, righted himself, and charged again in no time. When he burst through the hole in the bar Deathstroke fell to the side slipping a leg between Bane's pounding feet and twisted. A sickening crack sounded and Bane's ankle broke through the side of his foot. Face first into the alley Deathstroke marveled as the concrete met Bane's forehead.

Again Bane rose howling and his fists lost none of their speed. _Korea, Vietnam, Africa, his whole existence was war and survival_ , Deathstroke thought. Left jab, right hook parried. _The open hand can be taken from._ Head-butt to a right haymaker missed. _Not a single civilized society to date existed without the use of violence. Man feared not the stigma or moral repercussions of crime but the badge, the cage, and the gun._ Desperate tackle sidestepped. _The closed fist ruled every aspect of this world. Only the strongest take, and you could only take as much as you could carry._ One flat, side jab to the throat and Bane fell to his knees choking. Deathstroke pounced on him pummeling strikes to the face and body. At this point the crowd was full on cheering and screaming for the world's deadliest assassin.

"STROKE! STROKE! STROKE! STROKE!" they yelled with each punch. Before he knew it Deathstroke picked up the dumpster next to him and raised it above his head. Although it felt no heavier than a cardboard box he rocked Bane with it again and again until his opponent quit trying to rise, until the metal gave out and crumpled under the force. In the moment everyone knew the fight was over a deafening blast rang out in the night.

Slade felt the dumpster fall from his grip and instinctually his hand shot up. He caught the .50 caliber slug in his hand right in front of his good eye. Picking it out of his gloved palm he reached down and grabbed a pistol from his pile of weapons. Without a glance he pointed his arm behind him and fired a single shot. Immediately screams erupted from the rooftop across the street. Splitting the crowd he scaled the apartment building to find a bleeding, swearing Deadshot dragging himself to the far corner of the roof.

"Damn you Slade, right in the shoulder!" Deadshot whined. Slade removed a folded envelope and tossed it at the assassin's feet.

"For the effort, Floyd. Maybe next time."

"I don't want your money, old man. I want you dead! I won't be second best to you. Who in the hell puts a hit out on himself anyway?" Deadshot yelled. Slade moved across the rooftops remembering what he told the nameless woman in white.

"Deathstroke isn't who I am anymore. It's what I want," he confessed, but there was no end in sight from where he stood. Slade would fight forever if he had to because it was written into his DNA. A spirit of war, the drumbeat of a straining heart, that spark of being that screamed LIVE. It was the gospel of violence and human existence.

In the name of the fighter, and the gun, and the holy stroke. Amen.


End file.
